STAG-HUNTING 



stag break, while the harbourers, with their lymers iu 

 leash, hunted his line up to his bed. 1 The pack was 

 on no account to follow at a less distance than sixty 

 paces, nor to be uncoupled till the harbourer had got 

 the stag fairly on his legs ; as soon, however, as the 

 pack had settled on the scent, the lymers were handed 

 over to assistants, the harbourers mounted their horses, 

 and followed the pack, keeping down wind, ready to 

 give their help at a check. 



Du Fouilloux, in a passage that might have been 

 written by the master of any fashionable pack to-day, 

 complains that the modern field hunt to ride instead 

 of riding to hunt, and do not give the hounds a fair 

 chance : ' riding among them, crossing and scatter- 

 ing them, so that they can neither run nor hunt.' The 

 more orthodox practice seems to have been that the 

 sportsmen should separate, making for points where 

 they might view the hunted deer. So at least one 

 may infer from the directions given to a previous 

 generation in the ' Craft of Hontyng : ' 2 ' How,' asks 



1 The procedure was similar even with foxhounds in this 

 country till nearly the middle of the last century. See Daniel's 

 Rural Sporls, i. 130. 



2 ' The Veneryof Mayster John Gifford and William Twety 

 that were with King Edwarde the Seconde.' I am indebted 

 for much information on these points to articles that appeared 

 in Macmillarfs Magazine in April 1894, December 1895, an( ^ 

 February 1896. 



